View allAll Photos Tagged shellcanyon
- www.kevin-palmer.com - This arch at the top of the cliff is barely noticeable from the highway but it's more easily seen from the Shell Bench Trail. This part of the forest burned in a 2007 wildfire.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - It was a beautiful day for a hike in Shell Canyon. The fresh green foliage on the cottonwood trees was catching the sunlight.
At a 120 feet in height Shell falls sends the water of Shell Creek tumbling over 2.9 billion year old Precambrian basement rocks into a narrow chasm that makes up the inner canyon. These basement rocks are some of the oldest rocks earth. The falls is located about midway down Shell Canyon in the Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - The upper end of Cedar Creek Valley was very scenic with Copmans Tomb towering above.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - This spring fed pond in Shell Canyon is one of my favorites. It's usually calm enough for a reflection.
A granite hoodoo in Shell Canyon across the creek from the Indian Blanket looks like a dog sitting with paws out. In my family we called it The Pooch or Poochy Rock. The site is found between Shell Falls and Granite Creek east of Shell, Wyoming in the Bighorn Mountains.
Shell Creek runs through Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains of Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo was taken just to the west of the stock bridge near the canyon mouth east of the little town of Shell.
At one point on the Shell Canyon road (WY-14), you can see this prominent fold. At looks as if all the strata folded together as a unit without cracking or crumbling, except for the top layers which have apparently eroded away.
Limestone Walls near the mouth of Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains in Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo was taken from turnout for the stock bridge near the canyon mouth east of the little town of Shell;
Shell Creek runs through Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains in Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo is just west of the stock bridge near the canyon mouth east of the little town of Shell;
- www.kevin-palmer.com - I could have driven it, but I walked this 4WD road above Shell Canyon instead. The Absaroka Mountains are seen in the distance.
Unfortunately I didn't have time to follow the trail any farther into this beautiful area outside along US highway 14 just outside of Shell, Wyoming
- www.kevin-palmer.com - These leaning trees above Shell Canyon caught my eye. I doubt it happened naturally.
This prominent cliff between Cedar and Shell Creeks in Shell canyon on the Western side of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming can be seen from far out in the Bighorn Basin. As one travels in the Canyon it is an ever present landmark. Wolfgang Robert Copman, known as Jack, was one of the earlier Bighorn Basin settlers and sheepmen establishing a ranch on Beaver Creek north of Shell in 1880. Jack is said to have loved the square mountain in Shell Canyon and wished to be buried there when he died. He apparently was quite vocal about his wish telling everyone who would listen. As a result the locals started calling the mountain Copman's Tomb . The name stuck and it was officially named that by U.S. Geological Survey (though the official name now lacks the apostrophe). However when Copman died in Billings MT in 1907 his wish to have his ashes spread on the mountain top was not granted. As I have heard the story, his wife, religiously opposed to cremation, gave Jack a "proper burial" in the Greybull, WY Cemetery. Well that's the story I have heard. I have never checked to see if I can find his grave in the Greybull Cemetery but plan to do that on my next trip up there. Regardless the story of why Mr Copman was not buried nor his ashes spread on the mountain, the butte carries his name none the less. There are folks who swear (wrongly) that his remains are scattered there. I have seen the mountain's name also spelled Copemans Tomb (with and with out the possessive).
Though Copmans Tomb is not actually a tomb, in 1910 it did serve has a giant temporary headstone. In the summer of that year the skeleton of Nathan Lindsey of Ipavia, Illinois was found on the slopes beneath the butte. In the Spring of 1910 Nathan had been staying at a ranch in the area. According to published newspaper accounts, he rode out to mail a letter to his wife and get supplies but evidently got caught by surprise in a late spring snow storm. Missing for 10 weeks he was found in the shadow of Copmans Tomb still be guarded by his faithful dog . As put by the Basin Republican newspaper in Aug 1910, "T’was here in its (referring to Copmans Tomb) cooling shade and under its shadow all that remained of Nathan A. Lindsey was found, guarded only by the stars and his faithful dog.” (They don’t write like that in newspapers anymore.) Searchers also found one of Lindsey's horses alive, the other 2 perished.
Information above from personal recollections and the following sources:
USGS Geographic Names Information System geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq:3:2928542222691::NO::P3...
US Forest Service, Shell Falls Interpretive Brochure
Leavitt Family Genealogical Database
Wolfgang Robert Copman, obituaries found in Biography files in the Wyoming Room of the Sheridan County Library
Basin Republican as quoted in the Daily Enterprise August 9, 1910, page 3
“Nathan Lindsey of Ipavia, Ill., skeleton found in Big Horn Mts”, Sulphur Springs Gazette, Hopkins Co., Texas 19 Aug 1910
- www.kevin-palmer.com - A monocline is a bend in rock strata that are otherwise uniformly dipping or horizontal. This view is from the Shell Bench Trail.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - Towering walls mark the entrance of Shell Canyon. The road is very narrow and this was the only spot I found to pull off the road.
Sometimes called Granite Creek Cascade this water fall in on the north side of Shell canyon in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains was near a campground my family used to use from time to time. I think I may have caught my first fish in this creek with my grandpa. i think my daughter caught a fish here with her grandpa.. The campground was the site of a rare death due to a tornado in Wyoming ( only 2 have been recorded) when a man was killed in his pick up truck during a rare mountain tornado on June 26, 1959. After the death, the campground became a picnic area. I took my young family picnicking there many years ago now. The site is now closed to camping and picnicking. But across the road Granite Creek still falls and cascades down a granite "flume" on its way into Shell Canyon. This is a favorite place of mine.
Shales and thin sandstones of the Cambrian Gros Ventre Formation (~540 to 485 million years old ) are exposed in a road cut along US 14 in Shell Canyon located in the Bighorn Mountains on the east side of Big Horn County, Wyoming.
Coordinates (Shell Falls):
44 35' 16'' N
197 36' 53'' W
Flight UA Calgary-Denver
Shell Falls is a waterfall in the Bighorn National Forest on Shell Creek, about half-way down Shell Canyon, and a few miles upstream from the town of Shell in northeast Wyoming. The falls are 120 feet (36 meters) in height and tumble over basement rock of granite.
From the rest area and interpretive center, one can see outcrops of the Cambrian flathead sandstone, about 550 million years old, resting on 2.9 billion year old Precambrian rocks - some of the oldest rocks on earth. Visitors can also see "Copman's Tomb", a massive limestone promontory to the north.
Shell Creek is a tributary of the Bighorn River, approximately 50 mi (50 km) long, in Wyoming in the United States. Lying entirely within Big Horn County, Shell Creek begins above the Shell Lakes in the Bighorn Mountains. Starting at an elevation of over 11,000 ft (17700 m), it drops to below 3800 ft (6100 m) as it descends the western side of the Bighorn Mountains through Shell Canyon and enters the Big Horn Basin near Shell, Wyoming. It flows into the Bighorn River, a tributary of the Yellowstone River, just north of Greybull.
US 14, the Bighorn Scenic Byway, travels along Shell Creek through the canyon. This modern highway is relatively young. Much of it was completed in the mid-1960's, with major improvements in the 1980's.
(from Wikipedia)
A large limestone boulder sits on a slope in Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains in Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo was taken near the Indian Blanket east of Shell Falls.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - Last time I saw Shell Falls in January the flowing water was completely covered by ice. But now there was only a little ice left.
There is a train inside this iris:
You think I'm crazy, & like to say boyish
& outrageous things. No, there is
A train inside this iris.
It's a child's finger bearded in black banners.
A single window like a child's nail,
A darkened porthole lit by the white, angular face
Of an old woman, or perhaps the boy beside her in the stuffy,
Hot compartment. Her hair is silver, & sweeps
Back off her forehead, onto her cold and bruised shoulders.
The prairies fail along Chicago. Past the five
Lakes. Into the black woods of her New York; & as I bend
Close above the iris, I see the train
Drive deep into the damp heart of its stem, & the gravel
Of the garden path
Cracks under my feet as I walk this long corridor
Of elms, arched
Like the ceiling of a French railway pier where a boy
With pale curls holding
A fresh iris is waving goodbye to a grandmother, gazing
A long time
Into the flower, as if he were looking some great
Distance, or down an empty garden path & he believes a man
Is walking toward him, working
Dull shears in one hand; & now believe me: The train
Is gone. The old woman is dead, & the boy. The iris curls,
On its stalk, in the shade
Of those elms: Where something like the icy & bitter fragrance
In the wake of a woman who's just swept past you on her way
Home
& you remain.
~~~by David St. John
Vivian St. John (1981-1974)
Shell Falls, Bighorn Scenic Byway, Wyoming; Shell Creek tumbles 120 feet over the granite cliffs into Shell Canyon.
Sometimes called Granite Creek Cascade, this water fall in on the north side of Shell canyon in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains was near a campground my family used to camp in occasionally when I was very young. I think I may have caught my first fish in this creek with my grandpa. I also recollect that my daughter caught a fish here with her grandpa. The campground was the site of a rare death due to a tornado in Wyoming ( only 2 have been recorded) when a man was killed in his pick up truck during a rare mountain tornado on June 26, 1959. After the death, the campground became a picnic area. I took my young family picnicking there many years ago now. The site is now closed to camping and picnicking. But across the road Granite Creek still falls and cascades down a granite "flume" on its way into Shell Canyon. This is a favorite place of mine.
Shell Creek runs through Shell near the mouth of Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains in Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo is just west of the stock bridge near the canyon mouth east of the little town of Shell;
Shooting Shell Falls... until I turned around and saw this. Much more impressive than a waterfall hidden in shadow.
While you’re here, stop by and visit the world of Jahrensy, my trusty second shooter and partner in crime on this, that and another misadventure.
Flash Parker Photography:
My Blog | On Facebook | Flash Light Photography Expeditions | The Ubiquitous Kimchi
- www.kevin-palmer.com - There were a lot of interesting shapes in the snow near the top of Antelope Butte. This view is looking towards Shell Canyon.
Shell Falls, Bighorn Scenic Byway, Wyoming; Shell Creek tumbles 120 feet over the granite cliffs into Shell Canyon.
Coordinates (Shell Falls):
44 35' 16'' N
197 36' 53'' W
Flight United Airlines Calgary-Denver
The Big Horn Mountains are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles (320 km) northward on the Great Plains. They are separated from the Absaroka Range, which lie on the main branch of the Rockies in western Wyoming, by the Bighorn Basin.
Scenic Byways through the Bighorns.The Bighorn Mountains were uplifted during the Laramide orogeny beginning approximately 70 million years ago. The Bighorn Mountains consist of over 9,000 feet (2,700 m) of sedimentary rock strata laid down before mountain-building began: the predominantly marine and near-shore sedimentary layers range from the Cambrian through the Lower Cretaceous, and are often rich in fossils. There is an unconformity where Silurian strata were exposed to erosion and are missing. Following the uplift, large volumes of sediments, rich in early Tertiary paleontological resources, were deposited in the adjoining basins. Though many cirques, U-shaped valleys and glacial lakes can be found in the mountain range, the only remaining active glacier is the Cloud Peak Glacier, which is on the east slope of Cloud Peak.
The highest peaks within the Big Horns are located in Wyoming in the 1.1 million acre (4,500 km²) Bighorn National Forest. Two peaks rise to over 13,000 feet (3,960 m) Cloud Peak (13,167 ft, 4013 m) and Black Tooth Mountain (13,005 ft, 3964 m). There are a dozen more that rise to over 12,000 feet (3,650 m). From the east the mountains present a vertical relief of over 8,000 feet (2,450 m), rising abrutly from the plains. Overall, the Big Horns are more rounded than their sister mountain ranges to the west.
Canyon walls tower over Shell Creek near the mouth of Shell Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains in Big Horn County, Wyoming. This photo is just east of the stock bridge near the canyon mouth east of the little town of Shell.
Shell Falls waterfall, in the Bighorn National Forest along US Highway 14 in Wyoming in the Shell Canyon
- www.kevin-palmer.com - It was a beautiful day for a hike in Shell Canyon. The fresh green foliage on the cottonwood trees was catching the sunlight. This is the view from the bridge at the entrance to the canyon.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - Shell Falls is a roadside attraction on Highway 14 just above Shell Canyon.
A great view of Chimney Rock looking straight down Shell Canyon. You can also see the broad expanse of the alpine meadow which is covered with grass that is at least knee deep.
At a 120 feet in height, Shell Falls sends the water of Shell Creek tumbling over 2.9 billion year old Precambrian basement rocks into a narrow chasm that makes up the inner canyon. Located about midway down Shell Canyon in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains, Shell falls was a place my family often stopped on visits to the mountains. My grandparents had an old photograph of the falls hanging on their dining room wall that as a child I loved to look at. Shell Falls is a place that I have loved since I was a young boy. I processed this image in black and white to remind me of the photograph that used to hang on my grandparents wall.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - I don't know if this feature in Shell Canyon has a name. It's not really a waterfall. Water seeps through the cliff and by the end of winter quite a bit of ice accumulates. Since it faces north it's slow to melt.
- www.kevin-palmer.com - A wildfire burned through this part of Shell Canyon in 2007. It was still pretty dead here, but there were new saplings growing nearby.
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3XP DRI
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ISO Speed: 200